TV Deal Bolsters League’s War Chest in Event of Lockout

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The contract extensions that the N.F.L. negotiated with CBS and Fox include provisions that the league will be paid by the networks in 2011 even if no games are played because of a lockout.

The N.F.L. will receive a 1 to 2 percent increase over the previous contracts that averaged $712 million a year from Fox and $622 million a year from CBS. According to two people with knowledge of the deal who were not authorized to speak about it, the N.F.L. will get that money even if games are not played in 2011. (The networks will receive credits for the payments in following years.)

The money will finance the league’s war chest and allow the N.F.L. to keep its owners united and the teams operating if negotiations to reach a new collective bargaining agreement falter. The deal was announced the same day that the new union chief, DeMaurice Smith, made a brief presentation to owners, many of whom he had not met.

“My nose tells me he’s a dealmaker kind of guy as long as both sides are playing straight,” the New England Patriots’ owner, Robert K. Kraft, said.

Negotiations are set to begin in June, with the N.F.L.’s lawyer, Jeff Pash, leading the league’s contingent at the bargaining table. Smith has said that he hopes a deal will be reached before an uncapped year begins in 2010. But the owners are clearly preparing for a long wait.

“I hope there’s a labor deal. The fans aren’t interested in well-to-do owners and well-to-do players fighting over money. We tried to prepare the best we can. We have an opportunity to grow the sport together.”

Welcome Wagon

The N.F.L. owners’ spring meeting created a strange-bedfellows scene Tuesday.

The N.F.L. invited DeMaurice Smith to the meeting to become acquainted with the owners — sort of a welcome wagon with pigskins.

Smith has been traveling throughout the country introducing himself to players during minicamps — he is scheduled to visit four teams this week — and he spoke briefly in the morning with the owners.

Smith spoke largely about his background as a lawyer and of his passion for football. But in brief comments to reporters as he rushed to catch a flight, he reiterated that he wanted owners to open their financial records so that players would know exactly how much money each team made.

The league has consistently said it will not open its books, adding that the union knows where almost every penny of its $8 billion in revenue goes.

Such appearances by the union chief at an owners’ meeting are rare. One memorable one, by Gene Upshaw, came in 1993, soon after the union and the owners had reached a labor deal. The visit included the union’s outside lawyer, Jim Quinn, who, in addressing the owners, said they and the players were partners.

“We are the senior partners,” he teasingly added, referring to the players.

It was a great line, which did not elicit much laughter from a group of wealthy people who had not been called junior partners in a long time.

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Harry Carson, a former Giants linebacker and a member of the Hall of Fame, was among the retired players who met with owners and asked for their support of the N.F.L. Alumni Association, a new group that has assumed the role of speaking for retired players.

The association is hoping to track down an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 retired players who are vested in the N.F.L.’s retirement program but cannot be located.

The association estimated that 3,100 players could be located, and it hopes to present their interests — which include medical benefits and pensions — to the league and the players association.

Since being elected to head the players association, DeMaurice Smith has said that he feels the union should represent retired players, but Carson said there was too much bitterness among retired players for what they believed to be substandard concern for their issues in recent years.

New Orleans Gets No. 10

It seems a long time ago that N.F.L. owners spent one of their meetings simultaneously showing compassion for the strain that the New Orleans Saints’ owner, Tom Benson, was under after Hurricane Katrina and making it clear to him that the N.F.L. did not want him moving the team out of the battered city.

That was three and a half years ago, when Benson’s image was battered by intimations that he wanted to permanently move the Saints to San Antonio and after a newspaper report that said he had sent a message to Paul Tagliabue, the commissioner at the time, saying he would never return to Baton Rouge, La., where the team played some games immediately after Katrina.

But on Tuesday, Benson celebrated a decision by N.F.L. owners to award New Orleans the 2013 Super Bowl. “It’s a great day for our community,” he said.

New Orleans has hosted nine Super Bowls, but none since 2002. It beat out South Florida and Phoenix.

While sentiment in the wake of Katrina might have been for New Orleans, the reality of the vote was far more bureaucratic. New Orleans has been a favorite site of owners and the news media because of the Superdome’s proximity to hotels, restaurants and nightlife. When the Saints recently reached an extension on their Superdome lease, the last major stumbling block for hosting the game was removed.

According to The Times-Picayune, the bid document for New Orleans included little mention of the city’s recovery from Katrina, and focused instead on the city’s success with the N.B.A. All-Star Game and the Bowl Championship Series national title game.

Vick Going Home

With the former Falcons quarterback Michael Vick headed to two months of house arrest starting Wednesday, the clock has begun ticking on the N.F.L.’s decision about whether he will be reinstated.

Commissioner Roger Goodell said he would not begin to ponder Vick’s future until after the two months are over. Goodell has traded calls with the former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy, who visited Vick in prison, and said he would listen to input about whether Vick had shown remorse for his role in a dogfighting operation.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B19 of the New York edition with the headline: TV Deal Bolsters League’s Lockout Chest. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe